Do smart sellers buy insurance?

[sam9876]

Discuss...

[kensgiftshop]

If it was an expensive item, I would get insurance for it.

[arun7500]

Shipping insurance ? When I was living in San Diego we used Shipsurance. Under a subscription plan ($33, which is really just a credit)  domestic was covered at .25¢ per $100 and .90¢ per $100 for International.

[itsjustasprain]

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@sam9876 wrote:

Discuss...

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This ^^^^ from the master of the one-line troll??? 

[partial*eclipse]

Perhaps she hasn't had enough opportunities to exercise her favorite comment lately.

I do believe this is the first time I've ever seen sam start a thread.

[sam9876]

I have started 18 threads.

[chipper01work]

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@sam9876 wrote:

Discuss...

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If the item is at a price point that will make this seller toss and turn at night, then yes. Other than that no. I use cookie jar insurance for 99.9% of my items. I don't even give insurance a thought until an item is well into 4 figures (that's where my toss and turn point kicks in). I honestly have only insured about 10 items out of the several thousand I've sold. $30-40 for insurance on a $3k item for 3-4 nights better sleep is a paltry sum in the grand scheme of things (especially if you don't have much in the item to begin with, what's another few bucks off the bottom line)? I've had a couple of successfully insurance claims but they have all been on insurance included packages-nothing I paid extra for.

[a_c_green]

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chipper01work wrote: 
If the item is at a price point that will make this seller toss and turn at night, then yes. Other than that no. I use cookie jar insurance for 99.9% of my items.

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I remember that as a key point the last time this topic came up (at least for detailed discussion). If your cookie jar insurance is sufficient to cover claims for products that you sell routinely, or frequently, then that's all you need. Where it might fall down is if you have one big-ticket item whose value is beyond (or way beyond) what your cookie jar can cover if some kind of disaster occurs. It might be prudent to buy insurance on that one item, as opposed to kissing the entire cookie jar goodbye, and possibly remaining in the hole afterwards as well.

IOW, if you sell $20 widgets all the time, you can probably eat the cost of losing one or two $20 widgets, but if you add in to the mix one sale of, I don't know, let's say a $1200 flatscreen, and things go disastrously wrong, it would be nice to not be left with nothing at all after the buyer has been refunded. (Getting the buyer to cooperate with the claim is a separate matter.)

If you're selling $1200 flatscreens all the time, then again I would expect you can handle losing one or two of those. 

(Actually, having said that, I don't think I'd want to be selling $1200 flatscreens here anyway. Maybe I should substitute some other high-value example here that's less of a scammer target...)

[electrola_man]

I would say insurance makes sense in some cases, but I seldom buy insurance that costs me extra.  In 18+ years of selling, I have never had anything reported damaged or lost.  That is thousands of packages.  I do not sell a lot of things that are terribly fragile, and I know how to package the items I sell to provide adequate protection.  Most of what I sell is shipped either USPS Priority Mail, where I get up to $100 insurance included, or USPS First Class mail.  Usually I won't pay for extra insurance.  For example, if something that is shipping Priority sells for $120, I'll cut the insured value back down to $100 so there's no extra charge before buying the label, and accept the risk on the extra $20, because it suddenly costs (I believe) $3.35 to protect that additional  $20.  It makes no sense to pay that.  If something sells for $180, I might consider it.  For items that sell for hundreds of dollars, which are not common for me, I typically insure for full value just because of the amount at potential risk.  For items shipping First Class, those are typically $10-$100 items that didn't cost me very much.  I typically ship those for "free" since the amount is the same regardless of the destination, and I know what it will be so I can make sure I'm okay with what's left over when setting the price.  I very seldom insure those.  Of course, by my electing to not buy insurance, I am effectively sell-insuring, because if something happens that is my responsibility, I still would need to make the buyer whole at my expense.  In 18+ years of selling, the cost of doing that has been zero, so I would have to say I've made the right choice.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@sam9876 wrote:

Discuss...

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Only for items over a couple hundred dollars,  which for me happens once a decade or so lol

Were I to have a loss of any sort, I just dip my hand into the cookie jar

[kias]

well if the item is over $100 I have always insured it - BUT - I just paid for shipping on an item under 4 oz with a value of $225 - shipping cost were over $7 now with insurance.

1 - shipping for first class 4 oz ebay charged me $3 which is the same price I would have paid at the post office.  Did the rate hike go into effect today?

2 - Ship insurance has disappeared with this past week and now USPO is showing me that is the only insurance now available to me on ebay - hence the over $7 to ship and insure

If this is the new norm $3 might put a whole new spin on my $9.95 items - I've been upping the anti a little anticipating the new rate but thought we would at least get something off the over the counter price at the post office.  If it's going to be the same price I might want to start using my Amer Ex instead of Paypal funds.

[buyselljack2016]

Most of my items are low cost, so the virtual cookie jar works for me.

Over $100 I consider insurance against loss. 99.9 % of my items are not going to get damaged, ................. short of being run over by the mail truck.

[kias]

this time of year i'm nervous about those danged porch pirates

[buyselljack2016]

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@kias wrote:
 

1 - shipping for first class 4 oz ebay charged me $3 which is the same price I would have paid at the post office.  Did the rate hike go into effect today?

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Shipped item today $2.61.  eBay label

@kias

[bigchief2472000]

Do smart people have better things to do than degrade other people for how they choose to spend their money?